HERSHEY — Unfortunately the color of the medals won’t be gold, but Clearfield standouts Brady Collins at 152 and Carter Chamberlain at 189 will be bringing home their second PIAA State Wrestling Championship medals on Saturday.
Both were defeated in Friday morning’s quarterfinals, but both won their consolation matches in the blood round to assure themselves of at least a top-8 finish.
Both will wrestle in the fourth round of consolations late Friday night, with wins advancing them to the consolation semifinals and a shot at third, while a loss would drop them to the seventh place bout.
Collins (43-4) lost a heartbreaker to Bishop McCort’s Melvin Miller (55-3) 8-6 in overtime. Collins was up 5-0 early in the match, but couldn’t hold Miller off and gave up a takedown with six seconds remaining in the sudden victory period.
He quickly rebounded in his next match as rolled to an 18-3 tech fall in 4:21 over Saucon Valley’s Cole Hubert (37-10), a junior with two state medals to his name.
Collins will face Penns Valley’s Ty Watson (38-6) in consolation round four. Watson lost his opening round match and has won three in a row to reach the bout with Collins. The two did not meet up in this year’s dual meet.
Collins, fourth at states last year, is now tied for the Bison season win record with Sean Owen.
Chamberlain was defeated by Huntingdon’s Andrew McMonagle (45-3) by an 11-4 score in the quarterfinals, but then wrestled Brookville’s Easton Belfiore for the third weekend in a row in the blood round. Belfiore won the District 9 title with a 3-1 overtime win, but Chamberlain won the regional crown with a 4-3 victory last week. Chamberlain left little doubt in the rubber match, as he built up a 5-0 lead and then gave up a couple of late points in the 5-2 win.
Chamberlain (33-9) will meet up with Bentwort’s Vitali Daniels (40-7), a fourth place finisher a year ago, in the next round. Chamberlain has already secured a bit of Clearfield history, as the only wrestler to win medals in both AA and AAA, as he was eight two years ago.
Two Bison wrestlers were eliminated in Friday morning action.
Sophomore Cash Diehl (31-12) was eliminated at 121 by Central Valley’s Antonio Boni (37-4) by a 9-1 score. Boni was sixth a year ago, but was beaten in the next round of consolations, so he won’t be medaling again this year. Diehl had identical records his freshman and sophomore years, so he’ll be taking a career mark of 62-24 into his junior season.
At 145, junior Ty Aveni (37-21) was beaten by Bentworth’s Owen Ivcic (39-12) by a narrow 4-3 score. Aveni picked up two nearfall points at the end of the match, one short of sending the bout to overtime. Ivcic was eliminated in his next bout. Aveni will take a record of 76-45 into his final season.
The Bison dropped to 19th place with 19.5 team points. Faith Christian Academy hold a narrow 84-79.5 lead over Bishop McCort in the team race.
Full PIAA AA Championship results can be found HERE courtesy Flo Wrestling.